The move to Flexible Working

As we all know, our businesses operate on a global economy with offices around the world, relying on our mobile devices to do our work and flexible working is starting to become a necessity.

You no longer have to be at the office to work which is presenting us with more flexibility and choice to workdays.

But this evolution brings challenges.

Key business drivers for this change include:

Optimism returning to the economy

Inversion of IT – employees get better tech at home

BYOD

Growth in business activities

These challenges, if not thought about thoroughly have the potential to:

Limit collaboration

Limit innovation

Slow down the business

Fragment business processes

Generally grind things to a halt..

The great news though, is that when these changes are handled well, you can improve the performance of your organisation and staff.

Change in Employee’s Priority

In the past 10 – 15 years there has been a considerable shift in mentality towards work.

It used to be all about climbing the corporate ladder and advancing your career as far as you could. It was all about putting the hours and the effort in and succeeding at all costs.

Now with the developments in technology it is all about finding the right balance to work and life. This has been verified by a poll conducted by EY (formerly Ernst & Young) of 1,215 U.S. managers and employees that demonstrated people were choosing jobs based on flexible working.

We are seeing a notable increase in the projects we undertake to incorporate mobile and flexible working and BYOD initiatives – a clear sign of a cultural shift towards work.

Workers taking advantage of these flexible working arrangements reported:

Improved productivity

Improved work and life balance

Improved job satisfaction

Greater personal happiness

Reduced stress

The Challenges

Despite the benefits of flexible working strategies many managers remain reluctant to implement these programmes.

This reluctance stems more commonly from a belief that the culture of the office and the organisation is not best suited, rather than anything to do with managing the technology itself.

Despite technology making it simpler to implement flexible working, we are encountering many dissenting voices from companies around visibility of their workforce. Managers seem to lack confidence and feel that if their employees are out of the office that they simply won’t get their work done.

There is a real fear that employees working from home will feel out of touch with the office and its culture, and that the levels of work from these staff will drop significantly.

However, with all the work we have completed with customers we have always found the opposite to be true.

Therefore the real barrier on implementation is the concern shown by managers in the effectiveness of managing and monitoring flexible working. We are not suggesting that they can’t do it, just that new strategies present new challenges for managers.

The issue is how to effectively manage and monitor.

Establishing a Foundation for Flexible Working

Establish Communication Channels

Communication is the most critical element to the success of your flexible working initiative. All employees should understand the elements of your policy, from the most appropriate jobs to compliance and anticipated performance.

Create clear policy statements that define the program

Define clear goals and objectives for you and your employees

Demonstrate the process for flexible working and review what is acceptable and what is unacceptable

Discuss benefits of the program with your staff and the company

Review performance expectations regularly

Create a checklist of the equipment you need

Build a Flexible Working Culture

A successful Flexible Working program will require a certain amount of cultural change and minor adjustments. For instance how are you planning to supervise employees working from home?

The key change is shifting the focus to managing employees on results, focusing on performance, how well they work and meeting deadlines.

One of the greatest benefits of working this way is that it will open up ways of working and give you and your employees more freedom to complete projects. Flexible Working will also highlight issues of trust and empowerment among the workforce and show you where they may be lacking.

Before implementing a flexible working program you should consider instigating some (or all) of these policies to help manage:

Use technology to keep open communication channels – think UC!

Reconsider how jobs are currently done and whether they could be completed off-site

Develop performance related goals – short, medium and long term – to keep your staff focused on the jobs they need to be focused on

Figure out ways to appraise your staff remotely

Work to Develop Trust with your Employees

Developing trust is crucial for both sides of the relationship. Your staff need to trust you just as much as you need to trust them. You have to keep your staff feeling included and show that you value the work that they do.

Here are some suggestions to help you build trust:

Devise projects for flexible workers to work with other members of the team

Work a flexible working initiative for a while yourself to understand what is needed from both sides

Request and include the perspective of your flexible workers in terms of resource needs and timeframes for assignments

Delegate tasks as fairly as you can

Include flexible workers in departmental activities and social events

Encourage communication among the team of a non-work nature – think about internal social networks and UC tools with instant messaging features

Remain flexible with policies and procedures and adjust them as appropriate

Create a Culture of Inclusion

To be honest this isn’t just a flexible working thing, this should be a constant goal. If you keep staff feeling valued and establish a great team spirit you will get the most out of your employees whether they are working from home or not.

Keeping communication channels open, and providing your staff with a broad range of options to stay connected is a great way to make staff feel included.

When you have to call meetings, consider conducting them online where possible and allow for your flexible workers to be present at all times. It keeps you in touch with them, and your employees in touch with each other.

Monitor Performance

To do this effectively you have to implement measures that give you a fair appraisal. For instance look at the quantity, quality and timelines of delivery of work from flexible workers and your employees in the office.

Be sure to keep your employees in the loop with expectations and review them consistently. And for flexible workers you should offer support and guidance through a collaboration of conferencing platform where possible.

Getting the right tools for Flexible Working

With any project undertaken in the workplace, you have to understand the needs of everyone. A flexible working initiative has to be considered from the point of view of the workers and management.

This is where it gets interesting, and can be confusing. With so many technology options out there to aid flexible working, what do you choose? How do you know what is best for you and what will work?

Well, there is no “one-size-fits-all” answer here, but these should be at the forefront of your decision:

Social workspaces for instant messaging, desktop sharing and collaboration

Secure file transfer and storage capacity

Video and audio conferencing

These are some other key elements that should certainly be considered regarding your solution set up:

Hot desking

Single number reach

Twinning

These tools can ensure that staff in the office, and outside, can stay in touch with each other simply, and in a way that suits them. Open channels of communication then make it far simpler to include staff in any manner of meeting and business process and maintain communications with customers and prospects more effectively.

Great collaboration tools also help you deliver some other great benefits:

Video can break down the barriers of distance and make meetings feel more real and inclusive – this can be great with particularly remote workers and customers

Managers feel more in control through improved visibility of availability and presence

Secure file sharing platforms (such as an intranet, internal social network or FTP) mean that your employees can access important files from anywhere making flexible working and collaborating simpler

Deciding on the right tools for the Job

After defining your policies, you are now confronted with the technology.

The most common and secure method is to purchase a collaboration tool set, here are some key considerations to help you find what best suits your needs:

Can you currently meet the needs of your flexible workers?

Are you flexible enough to meet any future needs you can foresee?

Are you secure and private across your communications?

Do you use firewalls?

What level of security do you have and will you get from new software/hardware?

Have you considered the costs involved with education and training and the added technical support you may need?

What are the contractual terms and the costs for licensing?

It is a difficult decision to make especially with so many options available. It is important to find the right blend that works for you and your needs while reducing operational costs where possible. Try and find a set of tools that integrate seamlessly as the potential bottlenecks in sending and transferring information between platforms can be debilitating.

Keeping Everything Secure

The risks involved with security can be huge, so making sure that you are secure and protected is vital. Therefore, whatever decisions you make regarding flexible working and the solution you put in place to achieve it, security must be forefront.

Secure Email

With so many emails being sent back and forth with potentially sensitive data you simply have to keep things secure. Think about encryption and good virus detection.

Secure Online Meetings

All elements of this must be kept secure – audio, video, data and files.

Maintain Control

If you can ensure that access and restrictions are provisioned correctly, you can maintain control and prevent risk.

Secure Networks & Applications

It is important to consider the network sending the information and the application that your mobile / flexible workers are using, and particularly important across wireless infrastructure as they can be more vulnerable.

Whatever your decisions on Flexible Working, there are some real benefits and rewards to be reaped by giving your employees the choice, freedom, trust and respect to work how they want to.

Jonathan Sharp

Jonathan Sharp is a communications visionary and established technology business leader with 20 years’ proven excellence in driving business innovation and transformation. Sales & Marketing Director at Britannic Technologies, he puts enthusiasm into technology adoption, helping businesses to connect with their customers and staff in the most efficient and intuitive ways.